Finding Her Prince

“I’m not making a rift.” I’m not going to let her get to me.

“I’ve told you, it doesn’t need to be like this. Do you think I’d stop you from seeing the child?”

“His name is Stephen Serkin.”

“It won’t work, darling.” She sat down beside her daughter and put a soft, cajoling hand on her knee. Her eyes were swimming with sudden tears. “Look, you know I love you.” Her voice cracked. “You’re my daughter. This isn’t a battle, and it hurts me that you’re starting to treat it like one. Alice should come to me. I’m her closest blood relative. Accept it.”

“He’s thirty-four years old, and a doctor,” Suzanne stated. “Specializing in family practice. And he’s Jodie’s first cousin.”

Crisp fall weather gave way to Arctic winter.

“What?” Rose hissed. “So this is a total conspiracy! You think that a half aunt and a first cousin once removed add up to more than a grandmother?”

“It’s not a question of adding up.”

Again, Rose ignored her. “You’re wrong! How did you track him down, anyway?”

“I didn’t track him down. He came from Europe to visit Alice.”

“Oh, from Europe? To visit a baby? An ugly little thing who doesn’t even know she’s alive? Trust me, there’s more to it than that!”

“She’s smiled at me three days in a row.”

“Honey, that’s gas,” Rose snapped, apparently reaching the end of her rope.

Suzanne remained as calm as she could—on the surface, at least.

“He and Jodie knew each other quite well at one time,” she said, returning to what was relevant. “He studied medicine, here in New York. Jodie would have been pleased about our decision.”

The conviction in her voice was genuine.

She and Stephen had talked on the phone several times since their first meeting nine days ago, and had talked for long stretches beside Alice’s crib as well. They had gone to city hall to get their marriage license yesterday, and to a jewelry store to pick up two simple gold wedding bands. The errands hadn’t taken long. Less than two hours. And the impending marriage still didn’t seem quite real. But during all of this they’d started to get to know each other a little.

Stephen had retained the instinctive courtesy she’d seen in him last week, and the same humor and care. As for those two big questions, sex and divorce, “We’ll know, when either becomes appropriate, I think!” he’d said, with the upside-down smile she was starting to know.

Suzanne’s liking and trust had grown, building on her vivid image of him mailing a tiny pink bootie home to his convalescent mother in Aragovia. That was a gesture that couldn’t have been faked, surely!

“Did your mom get the bootie yet?” she had asked him yesterday.

“Yes, she called me last night. She was relieved to hear it was way too small for Alice now, and she’s started knitting bigger booties. Hats and sweaters and mittens, too, I expect. All pink. She loves pink. Be prepared to receive large, soft parcels with foreign stamps.”

Suzanne had laughed. She was becoming more and more certain that she’d been wrong about her initial moments of doubt and mistrust.

And Dr. Feldman had confirmed that Stephen was genuine.

“I had a diplomat friend check it out for me,” he had told Suzanne. “Anyone could blow in claiming to be Jodie’s Aragovian cousin, after all. But he’s exactly who he says he is, although I admit, I’m not yet convinced about the latest developments in his home country.”

“Developments?”

“I tend to discount the whole Aragovian thing. Jodie always did. She mentioned her cousin to me several times. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up making a permanent home here.”

“Oh, really?” She’d tried not to let her face light up. That would certainly help. She wasn’t sure what Dr. Feldman had meant by “the whole Aragovian thing,” but it didn’t matter, surely, if there was a good chance that Stephen was planning to remain here.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Dr. Feldman had said. “He’s qualified to practice medicine here, and he has the good example of his uncle to follow. Jodie’s father made a fortune in the U.S. after starting out as an immigrant without two pennies to rub together.”

Stephen had asked, this morning, if he could meet her somewhere on Friday afternoon, shortly before the ceremony. He had something for her, he’d said. She wondered what it could be. Hadn’t wanted to ask, and he hadn’t given any clues. He’d just said it.

“Something for you. For the wedding. And we might need to talk a little.”

They hadn’t been able to think of a place to meet, and had finally settled on simply arriving at the church an hour before the ceremony. It wasn’t one of Manhattan’s fashionable Fifth Avenue churches, but a little place in an out-of-the-way corner of Chelsea, where an old friend of Suzanne’s late and much loved stepfather still presided. John Davenport had happily agreed to perform the ceremony, as long as they could squeeze it in at three o’clock.

So Suzanne was meeting Stephen there at two, less than forty-eight hours away. She already felt a warm lick of anticipation curling inside her. Anticipation, and desperation.

“Jodie would have been pleased about your decision?” Rose was repeating in a derisory tone. “What do you know about Jodie? She was my daughter.”

“You gave her up for adoption at birth.”

“Because I was young, and alone, and penniless! It was more than thirty-seven years ago. Girls didn’t keep their illegitimate babies then. Not unless they were fools.”

“When she made contact with you this year, you didn’t want to know her.”

“What was the point? What good would it have done? To drag up that whole affair?” Suddenly, she gave a cynical laugh, and her focus seemed to fix on something in her mind’s eye. “Well, at least, in hindsight, if I’d known that Alex Rimsky had done so well for himself, I might have been able to get something out of it. Heaven knows, I deserve some security, don’t I? After all I’ve had to deal with in my life!” She blinked back tears. “But never mind that. We’re talking about your marriage.” Rose gave the word a sour, mocking intonation.

“No, Mom, I’ve said all I have to say.”

There was no point in prolonging this. Rose was very good at hijacking a conversation and pulling it, without warning, in exactly the direction that suited her. Suzanne didn’t have that sort of cunning. All she had was love, faith and need.

She stood up, not wanting to linger until Perry woke up. “The ceremony is at three o’clock. At John Davenport’s church. You remember, Dad’s friend? And you remember where it is?”

“Of course! But, lord, is old John still alive, after all these years?”

“He’s only in his late sixties. And, as I said, you and Perry are most welcome to come. There won’t be any written invitations, obviously. And there won’t be anyone else there.”

“Not your sisters? Not that ghastly old cousin of Catrina’s with the strange name?”

“It’s Pixie. Short for Priscilla.” Resisting the urge to defend her stepsister Cat’s eccentric but loving cousin, Suzanne added, “No, I haven’t asked them.”

Suzanne had seen Cat just last week, when Cat had come up from Philadelphia for the day to see Alice. She could have asked her to the wedding. Should have. Cat and Pixie would be hurt. Jill would have been hurt, too, only she was away in Montana, supposedly organizing a divorce.

Why hadn’t she asked them? She didn’t want to think about the possible reasons right now, just knew she’d felt a deep-seated reluctance to get them involved.

She expected an attack from Mom, but Rose just did that strange eye narrowing thing with her face again and said, “Hmm.”

“Biding her time. That’s what she’s doing,” Suzanne thought. “Waiting until she’s worked out a strategy, and talked it over with Perry.”

He had just rolled over on the couch.

I shouldn’t have invited her. I wanted to give her fair warning that I wasn’t going to simply accept Dr. Feldman’s verdict and let Alice go. But maybe that’s going to backfire. There’s been no chance to really think this through. What if everything I’m planning turns out to be a huge mistake?

Chapter Three

“Suzanne?”

She whirled around. “Stephen! You startled me!”

Waiting in the entrance of the chilly church, idly reading the memorial plaques on the walls, she hadn’t heard him coming up the steps, and the acoustics in the dark, old building made his accented voice sound strange. The place was a little musty, smelling of aged leather, which added to the unique atmosphere.

He saw the way she had her hand fisted over her heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “And I’m late.”

“It’s fine. It’s not a problem,” she answered, her voice not quite steady. “I was early. I came straight from the hospital.”

He stepped forward and touched her arm. “How is she today? You have a little glow, as if—”

“Yes.” She smiled, happy to have someone to tell. “I had a meeting with Dr. Feldman and the hospital social worker and one of the nurses. The social worker has recommended that Alice comes to me when she’s first discharged, because I’m the one who is most familiar with her care.”

“That’s great, Suzanne!”

“I know. And Dr. Feldman’s supporting it. She’ll still have the oxygen mask and the breathing alarm, and I know about those. It’s only temporary, until the custody hearing, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Her teeth began to chatter with cold and nerves. “Mom won’t be happy, but she and Perry just haven’t been around enough to know how to deal with the oxygen.”

“Relax!”

She shook her head. “Can’t. I’ve just been standing here, thinking about it all, and…”

She couldn’t put it into words.

If she had been tense last week when they first met, she was doubly so today, their wedding day. She was marrying a stranger, and didn’t know if he’d be coming to her apartment tonight.

Didn’t know if Stephen Serkin-Rimsky had secrets, or sins. Of course! Everyone did! What were his?

“I’m sorry that you’ve gotten cold,” he apologized again. “There was a delay at the bank.” The explanation for his lateness didn’t answer any questions, just created more.

“The bank?” Suzanne echoed.

He didn’t answer. They both looked as if they’d been shopping, dressed in jeans and casual shirts, with their wedding clothes in large carrier bags. Where were the bridesmaids? The gleaming cars? The milling guests? All the usual trappings of the romantic church wedding she’d once dreamed of were missing. This was the strangest occasion, but you couldn’t expect smooth-as-silk glamour and romance under such circumstances, Suzanne decided.

Lord, she wasn’t going to waste precious time regretting a few details! If this arrangement increased her chance of becoming Alice’s mother, that was all that mattered. She still had no idea whether Rose and Perry would even show up today, and what it would do to her chances with Alice if they did.

Could she convince them that this wedding made a difference? Could she convince Dr. Feldman?

“Are you going to dress?” Stephen asked.

“Well, I wasn’t planning to get married in jeans.” She heard the defensive note in her voice, and wondered why he made her feel like this. She was like a cat on hot bricks. Would have been even without the decision on Alice’s temporary care.

“I meant, are you going to dress now?” he corrected himself politely, and she felt bad about how she’d overreacted to his innocent question. This couldn’t be easy for him, either. They were both doing it for Alice.

“I didn’t know if—” she began to explain, then changed tack. “You wanted to meet me here early. I thought you might have wanted to talk, or something. In fact you said you did, and I…thought I’d feel more comfortable talking in jeans.”

“Put on your dress,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to talk yet. We’ll have time for that in a while, and, yes, we’ll need to. When you’re dressed, I want to give you what I have brought.”

Suzanne nodded. Why was she so breathless? She hadn’t been running. It had to be nerves.

“There’s a room Mr. Davenport showed me, beyond the side door at the back of the church, where there’s a mirror,” she answered him.

“I’ll wait here,” he said.

“I’ll try not to take too long.”

But of course she did. What woman didn’t, on her wedding day?

She had bought the dress yesterday, after work. Her legs had ached from standing behind the library’s front desk, and walking its stacks, reshelving books. It was a college library, not the sunny community library she would have preferred, and most of the books were thick and heavy. Standing in the mirrored fitting room at the bridal store, she hadn’t felt as if she was about to get married.

In the end, she’d only tried on three dresses, and she’d chosen one based as much on its price as on its style. Having witnessed Rose openly drooling over Alice’s inheritance on Wednesday, Suzanne was doubly determined not to spent a cent that she’d later “pay off with no trouble” using her baby’s fortune.

Now, as she stood in front of a spotty mirror in the little room at the back of the church, the dress whispered in heavy folds of pale satin around her calves and hugged her upper body closely. She began to like it, and not just because of its price. It fit her, suited her and left plenty of room for a piece of jewelry above the elegant curve of neckline.

She had some jewelry. A necklace. Her stepfather had given it to Rose, and Rose had passed it on to Suzanne after David Brown’s death, saying, “It’s dated. And it was cheap. I never liked it.”

Suzanne herself had always thought that it was very pretty, a delicate design of garnets and silver. As a child, she’d often begged Rose to let her wear it, but Rose had never permitted her to do so.

Now, when she put it on, she found it didn’t go with the dress. The silver looked dark and tarnished against the lustrous new satin, and the color of the stones was wrong.

It didn’t matter, she decided. The sense of David Brown’s love, contained in the worn piece of jewelry, was more important. But when she adjusted it on her neck, it caught in her mass of hair, and when she tried to pull it free, one of the frail links broke and the whole thing fell, useless, into her hand.

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